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IMM Headquarters

IMM Headquarters (HQ) in Catania are structured on three different sites, all located within the Zona Industriale (Industrial Area) of Catania: the offices, located in a building close to STMicroelectronics plant, the labs, embedded within STMicroelectronics plant, and the SiCilab, located in the ETC premises.

The building in the Industrial Area of Catania hosting the offices of IMM Headquarters

The research activities of IMM HQ are spread over the areas of Micro-Nanoelectronics, Functional materials and devices and Photonics. In particular, the activities on Micro-Nanoelectronics are focused on power electronics, including the development of processes and materials (SiC, GaN) for power devices, and are strongly linked with STMicroelectronics research programs in Catania. IMM HQ has also recently participated to three major projects, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and involving STMicroelectronics, on photovoltaics (ENERGETIC), sensors for health applications (HYPPOCRATES) and flexible electronics (PLAST_IC). The activity on Functional materials and devices are focused on the development of sensors for different applications: biosensors (proteins, DNA, blood oxygenation, water pollution); environmental monitoring (gas sensors, pressure sensors); UV and particle detectors based on SiC devices; cell manipulation. The activities on Photonics are mainly concentrated on photovoltaics including: improvement of electrical stability of amorphous/microcrystalline silicon solar cells, development of SIPOS/Si heterojunction solar cells and materials for light trapping. Particularly relevant in this field is the collaboration with 3Sun.

IMM HQ clean room facility located within STMicroelectronics plant

IMM HQ research activities are supported by a micro/nanofabrication facility, hosted in a class 10 clean room (100 m2), and by a wide range of characterization tools. Among the characterization facility, particularly relevant is the electron microscopy lab, consisting of three TEM microscopes including the advanced JEOL ARM200F microscope, with sub-angstrom resolution. IMM HQ is also very active in advanced materials deposition and characterization for micro/nanoelectronics, sensor and PV applications. All the research activities benefit of a strong theoretical modelling support, which spans from process and device simulations, transport, structural and optical properties in two-dimensional materials, novel materials for PV and biomedical devices.

JEOL ARM200F STEM microscope

Director

Guglielmo FORTUNATO is Director of the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IMM-CNR) since July 2015. He has been a visiting scientist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (1983), working in Prof. Matsumura’s group on a-Si:H TFTs, and at GEC- Hirst Research Center (1985-86), working in Prof. P. Migliorato’s group on polysilicon TFTs. His main scientific activity is on the physics and technology of inorganic (amorphous, micro- and polycrystalline silicon) and organic thin film transistors (TFTs). He pioneered the physics and technology of polysilicon TFTs and has given a substantial contribution to the use of excimer laser annealing for polysilicon TFTs and ultra-shallow junction formation. Recently he focused on low temperature process for flexible electronics, including sensor applications and microelectrode arrays for brain signal recording. He has been responsible of several National (9) and European (7) Research projects and also of industrial research contracts with ST-Microelectronics, Philips, THALES, GEC-Marconi. He was part-time professor of Semiconductor Device Physics at the Roma III University between 2001 and 2006. He has authored more than 240 papers published on international journals and more than 120 contributions to Proceedings of International Conferences, has presented many oral communications and 35 invited talks in International Conferences and is author of 5 invited chapters on books and holds 10 patents (https://scholar.google.it/citations?hl=it&user=8dWdm8QAAAAJ). He has been co-organiser of 4 E-MRS Symposia on “Thin films for Large Area Electronics” and has been Chairman or co-Chairman of some International Conferences, including the Third International Thin Film Transistor Conference (Rome, 24-25 Jan. 2007), Eurodisplay (Rome, 14-17 Sept. 2009) and the International Conference on Organic Electronics (Rome, 22-24 June 2011).